Like big factories for solar cells, integrated circuits, and LCD screens, the battery factory is at the mercy of advancing technology which may render it obsolete. Certainly there is a market for rechargeable batteries ... the challenge is to be producing the technology that is currently in demand for automobiles and computer use.

Big industries can be adaptable to change. They have large research staff who can find new technologies, and the infrastructure and resources to adapt. That is, unless management stonewalls them (looking at you, Kodak).

The smart utilities got out of the generating business and are now merchants of energy. There will always be people who need more or less than they can generate themselves, at certain times. That's why we have a grid.

The petroleum industry will run out of dino juice, but the ones that adapt to a different, greener feedstock will survive. Maybe they can turn all that Lake Erie slime into biobutanol.

""It'll be the end of the petroleum industry, power grid, and many others"

Or.......not."

Or... maybe so.

After all... as a "technological" species, we humans have been "burning-stuff" as our primary energy source for... how long, now?

Twenty-five... fifty... thousand years, now? Maybe longer?

Can't we do better than that? Isn't it about time for a change?

Or do we resist in order to continue to cling to that good-old familiar and comforting smoky and crackling camp-fire concept ( that has made us feel safe and secure for such a very long time that we may have even evolved a preference for it ) from now until... when?

When all the oil runs out?

And, really, because what we are actually doing is just making a very few people obscenely rich off of their continuing to supply us with tanker-loads full of a supposedly non-renewable resource? A "non-renewable" resource that just might actually still be bubbling up as byproduct-gunk from carbon still mixed in with the molten core of the planet.

In which case, we will keep using it ( all the while being told that it's still in short supply... for one reason or another ) until the planet globally chokes upon a pall of carbon-dioxide induced climate-change?

Which IS the one solid fact in this equation, folks.

Unless we really want to comfort ourselves with the words of Washington D.C. DA Paul "Igor" Ryan, that "climate-change is going to happen anyway."

If Panasonic is providing robots and equpment, that means that they corner the market. They already do tons of business in robots and they can will immediately become the biggest battery robot producer in the industry (if they aren't aready). Seems like a no brainer for Panasonic.

It does not need to provide 500 million upfront. The inventives will be divided into multiple things from exemptions on property tax and etc. And they will be provided over years of time.

Due to proximity to California, you might have some people move there to provide skilled labor. On top of that, Tesla will announce a winner by end of the year. The battery factory will be running by 2017 and full production by 2020.

That gives University of Nevada, Reno 2 years to train the first batch in their universities. And up to 5 years to train the second batch. More than enough time.

Plus the lack of skilled workforce in Nevada is a big minus. If you want to build a warehouse or something then there are plenty of almost high school graduates with missing teeth and tattoos in Nevada to run a warehouse. Not a tech-factory.

Lets put it into perspective, Apple datacenter created 35 perminent jobs for 89 million. ( 2.54 million per job )

Tesla is offering 6,500 jobs ( 76.92k per job ). That is like almost 190 Apple datacenters. Factor in the manufacturing Jobs multiplier, I am sure Nevada can work that out.

The Tesla factory would be paid off in tax revenue in about 3-5 years. The Apple datacenter won't be paid off this milenium.

If Nevada lands this factory, Tesla will instantly jump to #6 employer in the state. When factoring in that these are high paying jobs, they will probably become the #1 or #2 spender on employment salaries in the state.